Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice AM Khanvilkar has admitted the letter petition written by Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on the issue of Madhya Pradesh Professional Board Examination (MPPBE) scam and a division bench will hear it on Monday.
In the petition, Singh, besides demanding CBI probe into the MPPEB scam, raised the issue of “conflict of interest” by pointing out that Additional Advocate General Pushpendra Kaurav, who is defending the MPPEB in the matter, was also a lawyer for former ABVP leader V D Sharma.The petition was admitted yesterday by the Chief Justice.The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad former national general secretary had filed cases related to admission in private medical colleges and that the case is sub-judice, Singh said in the letter.
The Congress General Secretary claimed that Kaurav was rewarded and appointed Deputy Advocate General and later as Additional Advocate General as he was Sharma’s lawyer, and now he is defending the government and the MPPEB in the scam.The government, however, contended that Kaurav in his capacity as AAG has every right to defend MPPEB, as it has not committed anything wrong but the officers and employees working in it were involved in the scam.
MPPEB is a body under the state government and is a state subject as per the Constitution, the government said, adding, the Congress leader is trying to mislead the probe.Digvijay Singh also urged Chief Justice that the ‘clean chit’ given by director general of police (DGP) Nandan Kumar Dubey to senior BJP and RSS functionaries be treated as interference in ongoing investigations. On Friday, state ministers Kailash Vijayvargiya, Bhupendra Singh, Uma Shankar Gupta and Gaurshankar Shejwar held a joint press conference, claiming there was no legality in Singh’s letter to the top judge. They contended in his capacity as AAG, Kaurav had the right to defend MPPEB as it has not committed anything wrong, but officers and employees working in it were involved in the scam. “MPPEB is a government body constituted as per constitution. By objecting to Kaurav’s posting, Singh is only trying to mislead the probe,” Vijayvargiya said.